Archive by date | April 2008

EGU: North Atlantic Ocean may regain status as carbon sink

The North Atlantic Ocean may still be an active storehouse for atmospheric carbon dioxide, said scientists at the European Geosciences Union here in Vienna yesterday.  Read more

Can we solve global warming by reshaping Web 2.0?

Can we solve global warming by reshaping Web 2.0?

Sick of fractious climate blogging? MIT researcher Mark Klein and his colleagues are envisioning a souped-up new forum on global warming – described as “simultaneously a kind of Wikipedia for controversial topics, a Sims game for the future of the planet, and an electronic democracy on steroids” – that they say could reshape public discourse.  Read more

EGU: World’s “water towers” under threat

EGU: World's "water towers" under threat

I’m in sunny Vienna this week for the European Geosciences Union general assembly, a yearly gathering where several thousand scientists abandon their field and lab studies for an entire week to get together and talk earth, planets and space. With over 8,000 participants, this year’s meeting, held at the Austria Vienna Centre on the banks of the Danube, will be the society’s largest yet. Climate change and energy occupy sizeable slots on this year’s programme; hence my schlep across to Austria to meet with some of the authors behind the 12,000 abstracts. Following from a spate of recent coverage in  … Read more

Don’t know much about history, don’t know much about the IPCC

Don't know much about history, don't know much about the IPCC

James Hansen and Michael McCracken – two extremely prominent and vocal climate scientists – have rallied behind a US high-school senior who questioned statements in his civics textbook that play up scientific uncertainty on global warming. Now the book’s publisher, Houghton Mifflin, is promising to reassess its accuracy (AP, Dot Earth, Grist, Treehugger). From the AP: Legal scholars and top scientists say the teen’s criticism is well-founded. They say “American Government” by conservatives James Wilson and John Dilulio presents a skewed view of topics from global warming to separation of church and state. The publisher now says it will review  … Read more